er-horn
and shot-pouch,--for his accoutrements were exactly such as might have
been borne a hundred years ago by a hunter of Old Bear Mountain,--and
his gun leaned against the trunk of a chestnut-oak.

Although he still stood outside the fence, aimlessly lounging, there
was a look on his face of a half-suppressed expectancy, which rendered
the features less statuesque than was their wont--an expectancy that
showed itself in the furtive lifting of his eyelids now and then,
enabling him to survey the doorway without turning his head. Suddenly
his face reassumed its habitual, inexpressive mask of immobility, and
the furtive eyes were persistently downcast.

A flare of color, and Cynthia Hollis was standing in the doorway,
leaning against its frame. She was robed, like September, in brilliant
yellow. The material and make were of the meanest, but there was a
certain appropriateness in the color with her slumberous dark eyes and
the curling tendrils of brown hair which fell upon her forehead and
were clustered together at the back of her neck. No cuffs and no
collar could this costume boast, but she had shown the inclination to
finery characteristic of her age and sex by wearing around her throat,
where the yellow hue of her dress met the creamy tint of her skin, a
row of large black beads, threaded upon a shoe-string in default of an
elastic, the brass ends flaunting brazenly enough among them. She held
in her hand a string of red pepper, to which she was adding some newly
gathered pods. A slow job Cynthia seemed to make of it.

She took no more notice of the man under the tree than he accorded to
her. There they stood, within twelve feet of each other, in utter
silence, and, to all appearance, each entirely unconscious of the
other's existence: he whittling his pine stick; she, slowly, slowly
stringing the pods of red pepper.

There was something almost portentous in the gravity and sobriety of
demeanor of this girl of seventeen; she manifested less interest in
the young man than her own grandmother might have shown.

He was constrained to speak first. "Cynthy"--he said at length,
without raising his eyes or turning his head. She did not answer; but
he knew without looking that she had fixed those slumberous brown eyes
upon him, waiting for him to go on. "Cynthy"--he said again, with a
hesitating, uneasy manner. Then, with an awkward attempt at raillery,
"Ain't ye never a-thinkin' 'bout a-gittin' married?"

He cast